Coming Home
BY
Jacqueline Wener
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Counselling
City University of Seattle
2017
APPROVED BY
Bruce Hardy, PhD, RCC, Advisor, Counselling Psychology Faculty
Chris Kinman, MA, RCC, PhD (Candidate), Faculty Reader, Counselling
Psychology Faculty
Division of Arts and Sciences
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Coming Home:
An Autoethnography on Acceptance, Embodiment and Compassionate Awakening.
Jacqueline Wener
City University of Seattle
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Table of Contents
Dedication…………………………………………………………………………. 5
Acknowledgments…………………………………………………………………. 6
Notes on Style……………………………………………………………………….7
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………….. 8
Prologue ………………………………………………………………………….…9
Introduction ………………………………………………………………………..11
Part I: Separation……………………………………………………….…………..15
Paradox of Attachment……………………………………………………..16
No More Diaper, No More Bottle, No More Baby……………………...…20
Separation: Sleep Walking, Living Half Alive ……………………………23
Part II: The Hero’s Journey……………………………………………………..... 26
The Call to adventure Awake my Body Awake my Soul…………......…... 27
The Initiation…... …………………………………………………………..31
The Call Refused……..…………………………………………………….33
Part III: The Return ..…………………………………………………………….. 39
The Return to Love…………………………………………………………40
Self Compassion: The Elixir ………………………………………………45
Part IV: Practical Application ……………………………………………………49
Process is the Gift …………………………………………………………50
The Power of Presence…………………………………………………… 52
The Power of Body…………………………………………………..…… 53
Self-Compassion...………………………………………………………... 57
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References ……………………………………………………………………………. 62
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DEDICATION
For My Village

“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned
so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
~Joseph Campbell
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank all of the people who have inspired me to write and finally complete this
thesis. First, I would like to thank my students and my clients. You have shown me the
courage to be vulnerable, the willingness to grow, and the power of community to elevate. You
have humbled me with your grace, and have called me deeper and deeper into fulfilling my
purpose. To my mentors, who have spanned decades of my life, thank you for seeing me, and
for calling me to step into my power with patience and loving kindness. I would like to thank
my parents and my sisters for loving me always and for encouraging me to follow my passion
and trust myself. Thank you to my three beautiful children, Jonah, Laylah, and Jude, for being
my greatest teachers. You have inspired me to grow, to stretch, and to surrender, so that you
can know yourselves in your magnificence. I would not be the person I am today without you.
Finally, to my dearest friends, thank-you for being my soul –sisters, my cheer leading squad
and for always reminding me of who I am, especially when I forgot. You, dear ones, have
carried me through the darkness, and have helped to guide me home. I am so deeply grateful to
have you in my life, and promise to show up for you always.
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NOTES ON STYLE
This work uses the APA style format. However, an exception has been made to typical block
quotation format with respect to the author’s personal diary entries. These entries have been
formatted in italics to differentiate them from the main text.
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ABSTRACT
This paper draws upon my own lived experience as well as the work of Joseph
Campbell to articulate a way of understanding the human journey. It provides an
autoethnographic account of my experience with attachment, somatic work and the practice of
self-compassion to articulate my process of awaking to my deep inner wisdom. By sharing my
narrative of becoming, and linking it to the collective human experience, I hope to orient clients
to the teacher within their own bodies, and offer a compassionate hand to guide them home.
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Prologue
The danger is greatest when the finish line is in sight. At this point,
resistance knows we’re about to beat it. It hits the panic button. It
marshals one last assault and slams us with everything its got
(Pressfield, S., 2012).
Diary Entry 1 - Resistance
For weeks I have been uneasy in my body. My throat is full, thick and
murky. There is a heaviness in my chest. I’m anxious inside, and unsettled. My
whole abdomen feels congested and my bowels have stopped working properly. My
body is fighting something so strongly that it has actually created a dam to shut off
the flow of movement and I find myself frozen in fear. This is a familiar feeling.
I’ve visited this place many times before.
Weeks ago, I found myself doing everything I could to avoid the feelings I
was experiencing. I kept myself busy and self-medicated with alcohol when the
discomfort grew too strong for me to handle. I became aware as I have many times
in the past that avoidance could very well become a full time job and a way of life;
a numbed out, half asleep way of being in the world.
As the weeks progressed my feelings of discomfort grew to be so unbearable,
that even self-medicating began to fail. The still quiet voice inside of me has grown
stronger than my resistance. It has been poking and prodding me every morning at
3:00 am. “Get up and work it out on the mat, she says. Your body isn’t turning on
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you. She’s trying to communicate. Stop trying to out-run your feelings. They are
steering you in the direction of truth. Go inside, and take care of yourself; body,
mind and spirit, you know it’s the only way thru. So, I finally paid heed to the voice
and committed to a very particular Kundalini yoga practice.
This practice
combines Nabhi Kriya, a kriya that is designed to connect a person with their
center, and core strength with Kantha Padma Kryia, a series designed to open up
the throat and allow the essence of one’s identity to be communicated with the
world (Bhajan, 2007). It’s time for me to feel safe enough in my body, and
connected enough to the earth to speak from my soul, from deep in my bones.
You see, I have a piece of writing to share, and I find myself scared. I know
what I have to say is important by the sheer force of resistance I am meeting with as
I put pen to paper. It’s time to do something different. I have touched freedom, and
I don’t want to live in exile any longer. It’s time to share my story. I take a deep
breath and I sink into my body. As I breathe deeply into my bones I beckon the wise
woman inside of me, to come alongside the fearful child. She places her hand on
the child’s navel, and whispers the words “allow, trust, surrender.”
The child
places her own hand on her heart and as she does so, she relaxes; she feels her
throat release and with the release comes a song.
I'm singing this song, it's time it was sung
I've been putting it off for a while,
But it's harder by now, 'cause the truth is so clear
That I cry when I'm seeing you smile.
(Waits, 1973, track 4).
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Introduction
It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache
for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk
looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if
you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened
by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further
pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving
to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance
with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of
being human.
It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if
you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the
accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day.
And if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at
the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'
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It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary
and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to
know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want
to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you
keep in the empty moments. (The Invitation, Oriah Mountain Dreamer, 2000)
This manuscript is an invitation to embark on a journey of self- acceptance. It is with an
open heart and an out-stretched hand that I invite you to take a walk with me. I must warn you.
The journey we are headed on is both extraordinary and very ordinary. It has no beginning and
no end. There is no perfect package, and pretty bow to tie it up perfectly. The territory being
covered is imperfect. It is deeply personal, vulnerable, raw, and exposed. It reflects my own
unique experience but in doing so, connects with the collective human experience that has been
churning since the beginning of time. There is no backpack for fancy supplies, no tool belt and
no gizmos to get us through. This is a deep and powerful journey of self- discovery. It is done
naked, and calls on the body, and the mind to release the masks, to listen deeply and to awaken
to the soul’s beckoning call to become fully alive and awake.
This journey is both deeply personal and eerily universal. It is my story, my mother’s
story, my grandmother’s story, and the story of every ordinary hero. This journey has but one
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direction, homeward. It is inspired by the soul’s call to be honored, to awaken and step into life
fully alive and awake.
My personal experience of marriage and its eventual dissolution serves as the catalyst
for the most profound opening, learning and growth that I have ever had the privilege of living
and it plays a central role in this narrative of becoming. I use the word living here because I
walk with my experience everyday and am humbled by it. It is alive in me and impacts the way
I relate to myself, to my family, to my community, to my students and to my clients. I have
been learning to walk with grace through darkness, trusting deeply in the knowing that darkness
gives birth to light.
My process hasn’t always been elegant but it has allowed me to step into life fully and
has helped me to find deep resonance, alignment and peace at the level of my soul.
In this paper, my own lived experience and the work of Joseph Campbell will be used to
articulate a way of understanding the human journey. I intend to draw on my experiences with
attachment, somatic work and the practice of self-compassion to articulate my process of
awakening to, and connecting with my own deep inner wisdom and wholeness. I will link these
insights to relevant scholarly literature and explore them in a wider therapeutic context. The
process of writing an autoethnography is a deeply embodied experience. Using this format and
sharing my reflections throughout, will help me to clearly form and articulate my personal
theory and approach to counselling and benefit my therapeutic work with clients. I'm hopeful
that this piece of work will highlight the signifcance of understanding the costs that come with
our inherent need for attachment, the power of somatic work, and the need for self-compassion
in guiding client's through their own ordinary yet extraordinary journeys.
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Joseph Campbell’s monomyth of the hero’s journey first published in his book The
Hero With a Thousand Faces (1949) is the thread that holds this document together. It connects
my lived experience with the collective human experience. Campbell breaks down the hero’s
journey into three parts each with distinct stages. I will be using his framework as a way of
understanding, holding and conceptualizing my journey. My hope is that in doing so, you the
reader will come to understand your own journey in a framework that creates a container for
your experience.
This autoethnography is split into three parts. Each part explores key aspects of
Campbell’s hero’s journey within the scope of my experience and development. The first
section looks at Campbell’s concept of separation. I highlight the paradox of attachment theory
and look deeply at the pain caused by separation from or denial of one’s true self. My own
journey will be used as the platform through which this topic will be addressed. The second
section addresses the main components of Campbell’s hero’s journey: the call, the departure
and the initiation. In addition it will demonstrate the power of somatic practices to bypass the
mind and connect us with a direct experience of our inner wisdom. My experience with the
powerful technology of Kundalini yoga will be discussed in this section. In the third section,
we will examine the part of Campbell’s journey commonly referred to as the return and how the
practice of self-compassion is integral to re-incorporating ones self with acceptance. This paper
concludes by looking at how all of this living and learning has impacted me as a counselor and
how I will carry my new awareness into practice with my clients. Here, more specifically, we
will look at how incorporating attachment theory, somatic practices and self compassion into
the therapeutic setting can help to facilitate the process of awakening client’s to their own deep
wisdom and trust in themselves.
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PART I:
SEPARATION
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The Paradox of Attachment
We are each a unique expression of nature and her beauty. According to the yogic
perspective of the east, we are each “born divine,” and have the ability at any moment, to
awaken to our true potential (Cope, 2001). We come into being from a universal
consciousness, a oneness, connected to the majesty that exists in everything. To embody this
idea, one has just to hold a newborn child. As newborns, we just are. We inhale the world
around us, and we receive the world completely through our senses. As newborns: we are, we
see, we welcome, we connect, we allow ourselves to be nurtured, and we let go without
restraint. We freely express ourselves when we need something. When our needs are not met,
we do whatever we have to, to make sure that they are: we cry, we scream, we urinate, we
defecate, we vomit and we tantrum. We make sure that we are seen, that we are heard and that
we matter because our very survival depends on it.
We are born incredibly vulnerable to our environment and are completely dependent on
the presence of a reliable adult for survival. These needs are not limited to food, water and
shelter. Babies also require love, touch and connection and can fail to thrive or survive without
them. In her early work, Mary Ainsworth demonstrated the power of a sensitive and attuned
adult to create a secure base from which a child could go explore and experience the world and
his/her working models of it. Her research supported the idea that children without this security
were somehow relationally handicapped both with themselves and others (Bretherton, 1992).
After all, it is the bond to the primary caregiver that sets the stage for all future relationships
(Hammonds, 2012)
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The research on attachment theory is prolific and has pervaded the field of psychology,
touching children and adults alike in understanding brain function, development, mental, and
emotional health, relationships, and addictions (Mate, 2010).
The research suggests that our
pycho-spiritual wellbeing as adults is deeply correlated with the presence of healthy attachment
during childhood. What appears to be missing, from the research I have explored, is what we
give up in order to secure attachment.
As newborns grow into toddlers and young children they are taught to look outside the
self in order to know the self. In general, children are taught to distrust the inner knowing that
comes from being connected to a deeper consciousness.
Carl Jung refers to this process as
object referral: a definition of the self through objects, which includes people, possessions,
titles, situations and accomplishments (Chopra, 1996). According to Carl Rogers (Prochaska &
Norcross, 2007), as we become conscious of the self as a separate entity, we develop a deepseated desire for positive regard and love. Our separation from the whole, or the oneness, that
connects us infuses us with fear and a deep need to be connected. Connection is our nature.
We have just to look to nature to be reminded of this. “The ocean never ceases being ocean.
The wave is absolutely, completely ocean-curved ocean. Nothing more. Nothing less” (Kober,
May 5, 2013, para. 5). In other words, a wave is never just a wave, rather it is an expression of
the ocean as a whole. As a separate self, children become so vulnerable to their environments
that their value and sense of worth can become conditioned by the experience of others and the
experience of their experience of us. This often overrides our intrinsic need to self-actualize, or
to live our truth with authenticity (Rogers, 1959).
As children, most of us are taught to follow orders; whether we believe and trust in them
is irrelevant. We are taught to conform, both in thinking and in our way of being. We are
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taught to break things down, to see the world as a sum of its parts rather than as an entity unto
itself. We are taught to see what’s wrong with things (Kober, 2013). And after all this training,
we are released into the world and told we must succeed in relationship, in career and in health.
We set out in the world ill equipped; we were never taught to be present in the moment or to
connect with our own truth, we were never taught that we were an expression of love. So we
look outside and determine our value by comparing ourselves to each other, by judging each
other, and by belittling one another. We buy in to a lesser version of ourselves, and make
ourselves small, and hold others in restraints.
As a society, we are more committed to
disparaging ourselves, than we are to re-remembering that we are perfect and whole exactly as
we are and that nothing is missing. We forget the abundance that surrounds us and lives inside
of us.
All of this results in deep suffering because at our core we become disconnected from
our true nature, and from the beauty that is our essential being (Cope, 2001). In other words,
our instinct to attach ensures our survival. According to Mary Hammond’s (2012) research,
healthy attachment patterns in childhood can even help to mitigate mental health issues, like
depression and anxiety later in life. All the while however, it leads us to abandon a huge part of
who we are in order to ensure continued proximity, connection and positive regard from a
significant other. Almaas (1996) suggests that this loss of connection from ourselves and our
love of self is the greatest calamity we face. Eckhart Tolle suggests that a loss of connection to
essence is, in fact, at the root of our primordial pain as human beings (Tolle, 2005). Gabor Mate
suggests that when we lose connection with ourselves we create a gaping unbearable hole that
we try to fill with anything and everything because the pain of separation is exceeds our ability
to cope (Mate, G. 2013).
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I suggest that it is at the juncture of our attempts as children to secure attachment that
we begin a most momentous journey designed to re-in-corporate that which we rejected about
ourselves as children in order to secure love. The moment we deny an essential part of
ourselves marks the beginning of a lifelong journey to recover the very piece we banished into
the dark woods (Hollis, 2005). Our wholeness is dependent on our ability to embrace that
which we have rejected and thrown into the shadows. Peace can and will only truly be ours
when we re-incorporate our darkness it into our conscious awareness. According to Jung,
Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s
conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. If an inferiority is conscious,
one always has a chance to correct it. Furthermore, it is constantly in
contact with other interests, so that is continually subjected to
modifications. But if it is repressed and isolated from consciousness, it
never gets corrected. (Jung, 1970, p. 131).
What we resist controls us. When we can surrender to our darkness we also open ourselves
fully to our light. By accepting both polarities we can lean in, find the middle ground, and
connect with all the other perfectly imperfect human beings that walk the planet with us.
This journey homeward can take many forms and can lead to many places, some
beautiful, and some terrifying. It is often circuitous and the adventure of a lifetime. Either
way, it appears that we are hard-wired not only to attach to another but also to eventually
succeed at coming home to ourselves.
Joseph Campbell refers to this adventure of being fully alive, as the Hero’s Journey.
This initial rejection of self can be understood in Campbell’s framework as the pain of
separation. This pain is insidious because it often underlies the majority of our existence. As
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will be illustrated by my experience, there is an inherent human tendency to build our working
models of the world around the Hero’s Journey framework. The false self that lives to meet
others expectations take center stage (Hollis, 2005). This pattern of playing it safe, and wanting
to fit in continues until ultimately, the desire to perpetuate the pattern dissipates; we hit a wall,
and this safety measure no longer works.
No More Diaper, No More Bottle, No More Baby
How does this early rejection of self, in favor of securing love play out on the stage of
life? What does it actually look like? Too often we read things that make sense conceptually
but are difficult to translate into an embodied experience or understanding.
Here is the
beginning of my story, as I understand it today.
From the moment I was conceived I was adored. My mother wanted nothing more from
life than to have a child and I was her first. I have been told that we spent all of our time
together connected, singing, dancing, reading and playing. She wanted for nothing because she
had me, and I needed nothing because I had her. Her love breathed life into me. My father was
trying to build a business and was rarely around, but we didn’t seem to mind at the time
because my mother and I had created our own little bubble.
When I was 18 months old, my mother was taken away from me. She was seven
months pregnant and her placenta had folded. My little sister was not being fed and risked
severe brain damage. She was placed on bed-rest in hospital, and when I was brought to her my
behavior was agitated. My mother became depressed and did not want me to see her that way,
and so for the next two months I was moved weekly between my maternal and paternal
grandmothers, returning home to my father on the weekends.
My mother returned home from the hospital at 9 months pregnant, assured that my sister
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was ok and would live. For the next month she gave me every ounce of love she had and I
received her hungrily with an open heart and open arms. It seemed that everything was ok, and
that somehow I had been untouched by the trauma of her departure. And then she left again, to
deliver my sister. When she returned home to introduce us she was met with words that she has
never forgotten; words that bring shivers to my spine when I hear them. At twenty-one and a
half months I greeted my mother with the words, “No more bottle, no more diaper no more
baby.” I had toilet trained myself, weaned myself from the bottle and was no longer sleeping in
a crib. I was a big girl now and no one needed to worry about me needing anything. Needing
wasn’t safe because what would happen if it disappeared again in an instant. If I held it
together and I was capable maybe my father would love me enough to stick around and I could
depend on his presence.
In the months that followed, my mother showered me with love and affection. Sadly,
however, I had already disconnected from needing and had become self-reliant; my ‘play it
safe’ pattern had taken root. At twenty-one and a half months old I interpreted needing as weak
and un-loveable and put it into the shadows. I told myself that as long as I was strong, and
capable, I would be worthy of love, and no one would ever abandon me. What my young self
failed to see, or understand, was that I had abandoned myself.
Diary Entry 2 – The Pain of Separation
I find myself in the car driving aimlessly. I’m filled with angst and I don’t know what to
do with it anymore. My body is screaming, my heart is aching and my soul feels like it is slowly
dying. I want to run away, to be apart from myself, but there is no escape, I can’t run.
Intuitively, I know that this is one of those moments in life where I have to sit with my pain. I’ve
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been trying to out run it and it’s catching up with me. I keep looking outside for answers, as if
there is someone “out there;” a course an expert, some teaching that knows what I need deep
in my bones, deep in my soul. And I keep coming back to me…and me hurts.
I look at my reflection in the rear view mirror and all I see are eyes that are flat and
lifeless looking back at me. My face looks puffy and swollen. I feel like I have a peach pit
sitting in my throat and the feeling makes me want to scream and cry. It fills me with anxiety.
My heart is racing. I can’t swallow my life anymore. I’m choking.
I pull over, exit the car and fall to my knees. I weep for what feels like an eternity and
then I rise and begin what I know is going to be a long walk and dialogue in the forest.
“What is wrong with you,” the judge inside asks? “You have everything you ever
dreamed of. You are healthy, you are married and you have a beautiful home. You have two
children and a third on the way. Suck it up. How incredibly spoiled you are, what more could
you ask for?”
I know that it’s all a lie. It’s a sham, an illusion. It all looks pretty from the outside but
it feels empty and barren. There is something lifeless about this ‘perfect life.’
My body has been screaming for well over a decade. My throat and the area around my
womb are blocked. I can feel it and people that work with energy can see it. And yet, do I get
curious and ask what my beloved messenger is trying to share with me? No, I just try to fix it,
quiet it, and mute its screams. I know intuitively that my body is begging to be heard and to be
understood.
My soul is trying to speak to me through my physical body. “I’m listening
dammit.” Just tell me what to do already, what am I not seeing?”
“Oh, I am so afraid to look. What if I come undone? What if it all comes crashing down
on me?”
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I hear my voice beginning to hush myself with the same shhhing sound I use to calm my
kids. My body relaxes, my breathing deepens and my world as I have created it begins to come
into focus before my eyes. The landscape isn’t pretty or full of wonder like my current
surroundings. It’s built around a core wound with fear sitting in the very center. Memories of
my life begin to flood my consciousness, as if my body, mind and soul were waiting for the
invitation to be heard, and maybe even understood.
Separation: Sleep Walking, Living, And Half Alive
As I grew up, I took on the persona of the good-girl. I did everything I was supposed to,
I worked hard, played nicely and took care of everybody. My self-worth and self-concept were
directly tied to whether or not I believed I was liked and accepted, and no one had more power
to credit or discredit me than my father. My behavior at this time was exemplary; I was striving
to be more than just a good child. When I look back at videos of me from that time, I shudder.
You can almost always hear me calling to my dad, “Look at me, look at me.” I was desperate
to be seen, and to be accepted, I was calling to everyone to acknowledge me. Thinking back, I
ache for that little girl, as I can see my own soul calling on me to open my eyes to acknowledge,
to attend, to care for and to accept myself.
Friendship was simple. I was the best friend anyone could ever have. I was always
there to help, and the rock people leaned upon to prop themselves up. I had lots of people in
my life and appeared to be very popular but was deeply disconnected from my own needs and
feelings. I didn’t allow myself to be really vulnerable and always felt like I was floating on the
outside, never totally engaged, fully secure or whole.
My mom struggled with profound illness throughout my teenage years. I was incredibly
sensitive to what was going on, I could feel her in my body. I took care of my sisters, and
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helped care for my father.
When it came time for me to leave to go to university, I decided
instead to stay in Montreal and care for my family. I was the good girl, the one you could
depend on to do all the right things. Looking back I actually wonder if I would have had an
identity crisis if I had left. After all, my entire self-concept was built around ignoring my needs
by pleasing, and caring for others.
My studies all led me toward the helping professions.
I found myself drawn to
disciplines where I could help people to come home to themselves. I didn’t realize that
somehow without knowing it, I was trying desperately to find the tools, and the know how to
make my own way home.
When it came to creating a home I chose, all be it unconsciously, a man who was
struggling with his own darkness. His challenges were louder and bigger than my own and so,
my pattern of care giving could continue, as could my lifetime avoidance of attending to
myself. We had three beautiful children, and I can still remember my first pregnancy and the
incredible feeling of allowing myself to be nurtured and loved for the first time, after all, I
needed to direct all the energy I could to my son, and it had to come thru me to get to him.
About six months after my first child was born, I felt a very deep sense of melancholy. I sought
out support and will never forget the words reflected back to me. “The feelings you are
experiencing are too big to wrap your head around, because you are feeling the pain of every
woman who has ever birthed a child. You are no longer the center of your own universe.” The
sad truth was that I hadn’t been at the center of my universe since I was under twenty-one
months old. This moment will forever remain etched in my consciousness because somehow I
connected with the universality of human shared experience. I no longer felt alone. In some
strange way I knew that the beating of my heart was connected to everyone else’s, and that my
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suffering was a shared experience. The burden no longer felt so heavy.
I loved my husband and my children but something deep inside of me began to stir. I
felt trapped and weighted. My nature was so light and I was drowning in his pain and his
darkness; crumbling under the pressure of everyone’s needs. The sparkle in my eye, which was
my beacon, became flat and lifeless. My body started to scream. I felt like I was being choked
and I was convinced that I had a mass of some kind in my throat because my energy was so
congested. Western medicine negated my experience.
My training in Chinese medicine and
my intuition told me something very different. I knew that if I didn’t do something to shift my
life that I was slowly going to die. My mother learned that lesson, wasn’t that enough for the
both of us. It was time for me to break a pattern, not repeat it.
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PART II
THE HERO’S JOURNEY
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The Call to Adventure - Awake My Body - Awake My Soul
“I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the Astonishing
Light of your own Being!”
(Hafiz from Goodreads)
Our bodies are incredibly wise and dependable. When we feel disconnected from our
spirit, when our emotional landscape is raw, and defenses are down, the body and its physical
form is always there to guide us gently (Cobb, 2008). The body speaks clearly, and with deep
honesty, it does not pretend, convolute or confuse. While our minds and our egos are busy
working to grow impressions of our own worthiness and disprove impressions of our
worthlessness the body grows restless and unstable (Cope, 2001). It starts talking back quietly
at first, and gently calls us to remember who we are meant to be in this world. If we do not stop
and listen to our bodies’ wisdom, cries get louder and begin to shake the mental and emotional,
physical and spiritual worlds, with deafening power (Kurtz, 1990). The body is our ally; it is a
physical expression of our conscience. It calls us back to truth when we have gone astray, and
demands that we honor its messages. It is our compass, and offers us all of the navigation tools
we need to come home in the form of sensations.
Psychopathology can be understood as the body / mind / spirit’s revolt against the lies,
the limiting beliefs, and the conditions that suffocate our essential nature. This is not that far
off from Roger’s conception that the core of psychopathology lies in the incongruity between
one’s concept of self and one’s full experience of self (Prochaska & Norcross, 2007). The
body’s natural tendency is always toward love, toward balance and optimal health. ‘Dis-ease,’
arises when we are out of alignment with our true nature.
The body’s elegant intelligence
manifests internal imbalance with symptoms; signals that beg us to pay attention and come
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home to our essence. We are often so disconnected from ourselves that we respond to the
warning much like we would if we turned the engine light off in the car. Turning the light off
doesn’t make the problem go away, it just gets buried deeper and we develop holding patterns
in our bodies that block the natural flow of energy within us. Reich (1972) proposed that when
these lived experiences become embodied, that we become both physically and psychologically
armored to protect ourselves. The longer we ignore our bodies messages and accept the lies we
tell ourselves (Thurman, 2003), the more we are reduced and diminished, the more embedded
the beliefs become, and the thicker the armor gets.
Our masks become our individual and
collective identities. We posture, we pretend, we hide, and we become prisoners of our fears.
We wonder why we don’t feel seen, or heard. We wonder why we feel like we don’t matter.
Our bodies, minds and spirits carry the weight of negativity of scarcity of competition (Chopra,
1996) and we become prisoners within the confines of our physical bodies, living our lives
constrained by the external voices we have empowered to define us.
Awake My Soul
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more
painful than the risk it took to blossom”
(Anais Nin from Goodreads)
It was a rainy, Tuesday night in November of 2011. I was exhausted, drained, wipedout and lonely. My marriage was hitting rock bottom along with my husband’s emotional state,
and my three kids were sucking up every ounce of positive energy I had left in my reserves. I
dragged myself kicking and screaming into a yoga studio hoping (and desperately needing) to
find some peace and grounding inside my own body. I was so distracted that I walked into a
class at the wrong studio and was bombarded with over one hundred people. I looked at my
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watch to see if I could make it to the Hatha class I loved down the street and realized I was out
of time. I felt uncomfortable, out of place and a little scared. What I didn’t realize in that
moment was that the class I was about to take was no ordinary yoga class. My life was about to
be forever changed.
The teacher, Gloria, was the owner of Semperviva yoga studios, and the class was
rooted in the Kundalini tradition. There were so many people in the room and every single one
of them was smiling. The energy in the space was palpable and class hadn’t even started. The
teacher then asked us to rub our palms together, and inhale. Out of nowhere 100 people, in
perfect tone, began to chant a mantra I had never heard before. My mind thought this whole
thing was very odd and wanted to shut down the experience entirely. I could feel my mental
resistance, and my judgment. At the same time my body was responding very differently. I
could feel the resonance of the collective voice in my chest, and I liked what I felt, there was
ease, an opening, and an invitation if you will. The teacher then took us through a number of
exercises that combined breath work with chanting and movement. She played beautiful and
soulful music throughout. I had never done a yoga class like this before. The combination of
breath, mantra and movement, created a synergy in my body that was brand new to me, it felt
like pure flow. Halfway through the class, the music changed abruptly. The soft voice of
Snatam Kaur was replaced with Enrique Iglesias belting out his song, “I Like How It Feels.”
The whole room started to dance and the space filled with an energy that I can only equate to
ecstasy. I started to move, I couldn’t help it. I felt like the room was carrying me. I began to
let go, and a smile filled my entire being. In that space, at that moment, I danced and I wept, as
the little girl inside of me was shaken awake. The words of the song reverberated in my body
as if they were speaking directly to me,
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It's my time, it's my life, I can do what I like
For the price of a smile, I got a ticket to ride
So I keep living, 'cause it feels right
And it's so nice, and I'd do it all again
This time, it's forever, it gets better, and I, I, I like how it feels.
(Iglesias, 2014, track 13).
As tears streamed down my face, I heard myself say, “Oh there you are.” In that
moment I was unburdened, unscathed, untouched and perfect. I felt alive and awake and like
all was right in the world. I had always dreamed of being able to dance with reckless abandon,
and here I was in a room of 100 people living one of the most honest and raw moments of my
life. It was as if I had just fully embraced my body my heart and my soul all at the same time. I
felt at home in my body and I wanted more. Gloria unwittingly awoke my soul and in the
words of Joseph Campbell called that me to adventure.
The first stage of the mythological journey – which we have designated
the “call to adventure” – signifies that destiny has summoned the hero
and transferred his spiritual center of gravity from within the pale of
society to a zone unknown (Campbell, 2008, p. 48).
I recently found this graphic that captures how I felt in the moment I experienced
tapping into my true self (Hollis, 2008), after years of it lying dormant.
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(lisamaccoytheliberatedsoul.com)
Initiation - Follow, Charm, Bliss
Once having traversed the threshold, the hero moves in a dream landscape of
curiously fluid forms…here he discovers for the first time that there is a
benign power everywhere supporting him in his superhuman passage
(Campbell, 2008, p, 81).
And so began a beautiful, and painfully real journey home toward the center of me. I
started going to Gloria’s class five days a week. The movements unlocked the places in my
body that were holding.
With the physical release came an emotional release in the form of
tears, anger, anxiety, depression, frustration and grief. My emotional landscape had changed.
The canvas was transformed from shades of grey to the brightest and rawest hues of color. I
felt everything and realized just how numbed out I had become to cope with a life that wasn’t
aligned or ok for me. I was fully alive and awake. No longer weighted by the waiting around
for life to be different. Pounds of emotional weight began to fall off of me – I didn’t need to
hide behind them anymore because the pain was falling away.
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I enrolled in teacher training at a studio dedicated to training Kundalini Research
Institute certified Kundalini yoga teachers. I wanted to learn how to use this technology to help
my clients unlock their own bodies so they could gain access to the well of wisdom that sat
inside their hearts. I was inspired to guide people within themselves for the answers they were
seeking, rather than look to some outside so called expert. Over the course of my studies, I
learned that within each of us there sits a still quiet voice that knows exactly what we need in
any given moment. All that is needed is to listen to the voice and frequency of our intuition, or
the whisper of our soul. There are many ways to arrive at this place and for me Kundalini yoga
was a most precious gift.
My practice gave me an embodied understanding of Yogi Bhjan’s teachings. He was
often heard saying, “Keep up and you will be kept up” (Bhajan, p.3). I learned that committing
to show up for myself thru my practice everyday helped me to tap into and access a deep well
of strength and power inside me. I learned to be disciplined and resilient in the face of
resistance. I learned that grace manifests itself when we show up day after day to be with,
listen to and honor our bodies. When we free the physical body we free the mind, and when we
free the mind our soul has room to live its truth with ease. My own embodied experience of
consistently working my body back into flow, created an opportunity, to access “deep wisdom,
self-control, intuition and the use of the neutral mind” (Bhajan, p. 5).
It wasn’t long after my foray into Kundalini yoga that I left my husband. It wasn’t a
decision or a choice but instead a deep knowing that came to me like a lighting bolt. I was
walking over the Burrard Street Bridge and chanting. I stopped to admire the view and to
breathe. A little voice inside my body spoke and said, “Enough, its time.” I listened and took
off my ring. With tears of relief I threw it into the ocean.
It didn’t hurt. I didn’t suffer.
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Looking back at that time I smile to myself, because it was the first time in my life that I put me
first.
I was living my mother’s prayer, “Dear God, please allow me to be as selfish as I
possibly can, so I can never blame another for that which I didn’t do for myself.” I was doing
for me, honoring me, paying heed to my body.
My husband on the other hand fell apart. He was brought to his knees and shaken
awake. He started exercising, reading, learning and exploring. He became healthier and more
awake than I had ever known him and he wanted me back. He pursued me shamelessly and his
zest for life and willingness to open and change eventually captured me.
The Call Refused
Often in actual life we encounter the dull case of the call unanswered: for it is
always possible to turn the ear to other interests. Refusal of the summons
converts the adventure to its negative. Walled in boredom, hard work, or
“culture,” the subject loses the power of significant affirmative action and
becomes a victim to be saved. His flowering world becomes a wasteland of
dry stones and his life feels meaningless
(Campbell, 2008, p. 49).
What I knew then, but couldn’t admit to myself was that I was refusing the call to
adventure and embracing the false promise of safety, security and love. The canvas of my life
was to become gray again if only for a while. Things returned back to the status quo very
quickly, as my husband fell back asleep once he was safe again in my arms. I slowly put back
on the weight I had lost to protect and armor myself.
had defied her messages, and her trust.
My body grew very angry with me. I
The constriction in my throat returned with a
vengeance. I became irritable, and short tempered. I couldn’t breathe and I pretended to not
35
know why. I felt trapped again, in the confines of my husband’s darkness and the walls were
caving in.
Not all who hesitate are lost. So it is that the predicament following an obstinate refusal
of the call proves to be the occasion of a providential revelation of some unsuspected
principle of release (Campbell, 2008, p.53)
“Our intrinsic tendency to know ourselves as divine will not be tempered” (M.T. Kelly,
2013). At any time in our lives, when the dissonance between our inherent potential and who
we are being in the world is big enough, we break down because of a deep seeded need to break
open. “Our soul’s purpose will come knocking on our door–insisting on genuine prosperity,
relationships and joyful wellbeing, and will turn our lives upside down in order to achieve it”
(M.T. Kelly, 2013). And that is exactly what happened.
For a seed to achieve its greatest expression it must come completely undone.
The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone
who doesn’t understand growth, it would like complete destruction.
(Cynthia Occeli, from Goodreads).
Diary Entry 3 – Apotheosis - She Came Undone to Finally Come Together
On September 1st of 2014, I took my husband to a clinic in Whistler in search of
medication for a terrible migraine. We left the clinic in an ambulance headed for VGH a few
hours later. Within two days, my husband and the father of my three children was rolled in for
surgery for a massive, grapefruit sized, brain tumor. I was alone with him, our family was on
the east coast and our friends were helping to care for our kids. I rolled him into the operating
room, scared, raw and afraid. I kissed him goodbye and as the doors closed, I heard myself
36
whisper, “Is this finally my way out?” Hearing my own voice, I gasped and held my breath for
what felt like an eternity. I fell to my knees as tears streamed down my face and pooled on the
floor. I knew there was no going back from this moment, no amount of rationalizing or
pretending, could ever have me deny my truth again. It was like being hit in the head with a
sledgehammer.
My marriage was over, and I Jacqueline Wener, the consummate ‘people
pleaser’ was to become the bitch that left her husband with a brain tumor.
He recovered from surgery beautifully and I nursed him back to health, knowing deep
within my being that it was only a matter of time before he would notice that I was no longer
there. Within the month and with little warning, his health started to decline. An infection was
found, and he began having seizures. He came out of his second surgery with a loss of mobility
and feeling in his left hand and arm. His lip drooped, and his speech was affected. He was
decimated and entered a very dark depression. One day, I brought lunch up to our bedroom, a
space I no longer wanted to occupy as the heaviness and darkness of his experience was so
thick and palpable that I couldn’t breathe inside. He asked me directly, “Where is my wife? I
have a nurse and a caregiver, but where is the woman who truly loves me?”
I sat on the bed with him, and with tears rolling down my face I told him the truth, that I
had checked out long before, and that he had a friend who would see him thru all of this but
that our marriage was over. As I sat and talked to him, I watched his heart break. His
emotions were so raw, his tears and anger so real. I sat there present, witnessing all of it but
somehow detached from his suffering. I had spoken a truth that was so real and so raw; a truth
I knew would hurt him, but deep inside I also knew it would finally free me. In that moment, I
just let go, and I trusted my inner wisdom to guide me. I knew in my heart that everything
would eventually be ok, no matter what.
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She Let Go
She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.
She let go of the fear. She let go of the judgments. She let go of the
confluence of opinions swarming around her head. She let go of the
committee of indecision within her. She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons.
Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.
She didn’t ask anyone for advice. She didn’t read a book on how to let
go. She didn’t search the scriptures. She just let go. She let go of all of
the memories that held her back. She let go of all of the anxiety that kept
her from moving forward. She let go of the planning and all of the
calculations about how to do it just right.
She didn’t promise to let go. She didn’t journal about it. She didn’t write
the projected date in her Day-Timer. She made no public announcement
and put no ad in the paper. She didn’t check the weather report or read
her daily horoscope. She just let go.
She didn’t analyze whether she should let go. She didn’t call her friends
to discuss the matter. She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.
She didn’t call the prayer line. She didn’t utter one word. She just let go.
No one was around when it happened. There was no applause or
congratulations. No one thanked her or praised her. No one noticed a
thing. Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.
There was no effort. There was no struggle. It wasn’t good and it wasn’t
bad. It was what it was, and it is just that.
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In the space of letting go, she let it all be. A small smile came over her
face. A light breeze blew through her. And the sun and the moon shone
forevermore
(Reverend Safire Rose, from Elephant Journal).
Life became very difficult for us. I did the best I could to shelter our children from the
intensity of it all and to just meet them with love. I succeeded most of the time, but was a
colossal failure at others. The warrior in me grew very strong as the judgments of others flew
at me like bullets in a firing squad. Every time I wanted to fall apart or break down a still quiet
voice would whisper to me, ‘Keep your head up and you will be kept up, grace doesn’t always
look elegant.’ I paid heed to the wise voice and surrendered to it. Everything that I had learned
over the last few years felt like divine intervention, like somehow the universe was preparing
me to “stand in the center of the fire and not shrink back” (Oriah Mountain Dreamer, 2000).
My practice and its teachings had afforded me the tools I needed to be disciplined, committed
and to make my way through this incredibly challenging experience. I had arrived. I heard the
call. I honored myself. I made very difficult decisions. I broke old patterns. I was free, so
why couldn’t I breathe? What I wasn’t yet able to see or grasp was that the warrior had found
her place on the grand stage of this journey for her last hurrah. She had fought hard to survive,
to hold it all together, and to make it look just right for her kids and the world around her. She
was admired for her strength and her ability to be super woman. Even her father acknowledged
her unrelenting capacity. After all, she was as capable as they come, no one could have carried
her family thru the trials and tribulations they had faced with more honor or fortitude than she
had. And yet, deep within my body a level of unrest was gnawing at me. What I couldn’t yet
digest was that to truly find my way home, I would need to soften, let the warrior go and melt
39
into myself with gentleness, with love and compassion. My journey homeward wasn’t over,
but had only really just begun.
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PART III
THE RETURN
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The Return to Love
“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all exploring will be to arrive
where we started and know the place for the first time.”
(Eliot, T.S., 1942).
Now that all that all the upheaval in my life had quieted and the dust began to settle, I
began to feel. My lifetime coping mechanism of numbing was revealing itself to me as the
giant iceberg began to thaw and feelings flooded my body. I woke up in the middle of the night
filled with terror as I heard myself say, “Oh my God it’s coming, everyone said it would, and
yet somehow I figured I was better than this. Oh My God, its happening, I’m going to have a
nervous breakdown, oh no, everything is going to fall apart.” I could hear my heart racing, and
feel my face getting hot and my palms sweating. I was scared, really scared, and then reality
hit. “You are alone,” I heard myself say, “And you are responsible for three kids, you don’t
have the luxury of a nervous breakdown.” The quiet voice inside my heart, the one beneath the
panic, spoke gently and said, “It’s time to get some help honey, you can’t do this alone.”
I found myself a therapist, a necessity, that at the time I could only see as an indulgence.
I was drawn to her because she had lived thru similar experiences to mine and because she was
deeply connected in her work and her person to Eastern philosophies. She invited all of me into
the room with her gentleness and like magic ALL of me began to thaw into what seemed like an
endless puddle of tears. She accepted me, and met my self-judgments with compassion, which
seemed to both validate them and disempower them at the same time. Her presence and her
words softened something in me. She held my hand as I stumbled down a path she knew in the
recesses of her own soul. She championed me as I took risks and gave me her hand when I fell
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down. She read me poetry that felt like it was written just for me. John O’ Donohue’s words
still whisper in my ears as I think back on the time I spent with her.
Awaken to the mystery of being here and enter the quiet immensity of your own
presence.
Have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.
Receive encouragement when new frontiers beckon.
Respond to the call of your gift and the courage to follow its path.
Let the flame of anger free you of all falsity.
May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame.
May anxiety never linger about you.
May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of soul.
Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.
Be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.
May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.
(For Presence
O’Donohue, John, 2008).
My therapist gave me hope. As I sit here and I take in my own writing, I’m struck by
the impression she left on me. She did very little, said very little really, and yet her presence,
seemed to be giving me permission, to come into my own being. In her presence, I could feel
myself sinking fully into my body. I felt things I didn’t like. I felt weak and needy, I felt
scared and lost. The people-pleasing identity that I had always depended on like a compass,
had been traded in, but I didn’t know what for yet. The bow I had always used to wrap my
experience up perfectly was lost forever as my masks of protection fell away. She beckoned
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me to be gentle with myself, and to receive all of me with love. She tried to teach me about
self-compassion, sharing the work of her teacher Pema Chodron with me. And this is where we
hit what I like to refer to now as the proverbial brick wall. No matter what she said, my mind
could not integrate the words self and compassion together and believe me, she tried.
Interestingly, so had three other teachers of mine throughout the years, but they were also met
with a brick wall or what I have come to understand now as my little iceberg, and blind-spot. I
stopped seeing her, having gone as far as I was able to at the time. In Campbell’s hero’s
journey, this time in my life could be understood as the refusal to return. I didn’t know how to
own the learning, or the wisdom that was meant to become the very fabric of my offering to the
world. I was incredibly grateful to my therapist for what I had learned and was awakened to
both my confusion and intrigue on the subject of self-compassion.
My natural inclination was to study the topic, but not for me of course. I immersed
myself in researching self-compassion to help benefit my clients and my students. I knew
somehow that this work was deeply important for healing and growth to occur. I just wasn’t
quite ready to own it as my own. As I studied the work of Neff, Germer, Chodron and Chopra
and shared it with my clients, my students and my friends, I watched beautiful transformations
unfold before my eyes.
It became so clear to me through witnessing these openings, how
hungry we all are to be whole. The parts of ourselves that we relegated to the shadows for the
purposes of self-preservation as young children are the very parts of ourselves that are longing
so deeply for acceptance. As I created space for those around me to meet their core wounding
with tenderness and fierce gentleness, masks began to fall away as truth began to show itself.
The most sacred of spaces were created; spaces where people were meeting themselves with
love and acceptance. The teachers in my clients, my students and my friends began to awaken
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to their own deepest wisdom as darkness was transformed into light. I was mesmerized, and
humbled bearing witness to the beauty that was rising out of the ashes of pain. We often teach
what we most need to learn; what we are hungry for, this was no exception. Self-compassion
was something I had been starving for. I masked it beautifully to most, even to myself. My
teachers always knew better, but it was my own my own students growth that called me home
one day.
Diary Entry 4 – Compassionate Awakening – Re-incorporation
I sit down at my big table to write a little. I have a client coming in 45 minutes and
want to make use of every moment I can to get this thesis done. I can’t focus, the fullness and
constriction in my neck feels unbearable. I’ve been up every night for the last few weeks, at
2:30 am, plagued with anxiety. I’m not naturally an anxious person, but then again no one
really is.
The experience of being in my body has been so unpleasant, that I want to exorcise it
from the very fabric of my very being. A wise whisper inside reminds that the only way out is
through, and that this is exactly where I need to be. All of my vices seem to have melted away.
I’m not over-eating, drinking, smoking or staying up late and watching TV. I’m not gossiping
or consorting with my friends, or wasting time on my I-phone. I’m getting out of bed every
night and using my practice to move this thru my body. Hours of yoga and meditating and I’m
still here. It seems there is no escaping this feeling. My body is screaming. I wrap a scarf
around my neck; I don’t want to be exposed. I don’t want anyone to see what I don’t yet
understand. I feel tears begin to well up in my eyes. I stiffen, “No” I tell myself, “This isn’t
the time. You need to get your thesis done. Enough already, Jacqueline get it together.” One
of my best friend’s calls and I answer knowing that I can’t mask my state of desperation. Her
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words meet my heart like subtle alchemy, so simple and yet so incredibly profound. She says,
“You are pure grace, my friend. As you sit there in pieces, coming apart at the seams, all I see
is your light.” I scoff and tell her that all I see is a puddle of tears. “My sweet beautiful
friend,” she said, “Grace isn’t always elegant. It shines when we are real, and my dear in this
moment, you are as real as day.” Her words will forever be etched in my heart-mind, for they
transcended the human plain and spoke directly to my soul.
I take what feels like the deepest breath I have ever breathed, and the wise whisper
grabs hold of my attention once again. The judge is quieted, my chest softens, tears begin to
flow, and I am brought to my knees. I sob uncontrollably and notice that I have wrapped my
arms around myself each hand tenderly holding the opposite shoulder and I rock myself as I
cry. I hear all of my studying and teaching come back to me, but this time, it’s not about
discipline, commitment or grit. I’m parenting myself, holding myself steady and creating a
container for feelings that would have completely uprooted me at another time. I hear my own
adaptation of Kristen Neff’s (2011, p. 119) words:
1- Oh, Jacqueline, this is a moment of deep suffering
2- You are not alone honey. Suffering is a part of every person’s journey
3- Be gentle with yourself in this moment, its ok to crumble.
4- Meet yourself with all the love and compassion you so freely give away. Heal, heal,
heal.
I rock myself on the floor. I know that I am cracking open. It feels good to let got, to breathe,
and to trust that somehow this is exactly where I am meant to be right now. My body has
finally spoken so loudly and so clearly, that the very foundation of my armoring is shaken. The
armor falls to the floor and shatters like glass refracting in the light. “I’m listening,” I hear
46
myself say. “Shhhhhhhh I’ve got you, your ok, just cry, let it go.” I rock on the floor for a few
minutes, meeting myself exactly where I am. The pain passes like a wave. I feel peaceful and
grounded, empty and yet somehow whole, as if for the first time. I know I have just done
something huge at a cellular level and yet so very subtle that no one on the outside would ever
know that on the inside I had been completely transformed.
Self -Compassion: The Elixir
“And I said to my body. Softly. ‘I want to be your friend.’ It took a long breath.
And replied, ‘I have been waiting my whole life for this.”
(Nayyirah Waheed from Goodreads)
From this moment forward self-compassion became a daily practice. I didn’t try it on,
make an effort or will myself to do it, it just happened. I had worked hard at cultivating my
witness consciousness throughout the years and my observer had grown very strong. I started
meeting myself with understanding and love, instead of judgment and self-criticism. Neff
refers to this as self-kindness and identifies it as the first component of her model of self –
compassion (Neff, 2011). I stopped needing to have it all together and started to express how I
really felt for the first time. It seemed I was in deep conversation with myself everyday, and the
more I deepened my own conversation the more deeply I connected and accepted those around
me. Part of Neff’s model of self-compassion requires that we recognize our common humanity
(Neff, 2011). What she means by this is that suffering is universal and that rather than having it
separate us from each other and breed shame, we can use it to connect and engage one another
with empathy. It seems that part of our need for independence exists so that we can hide our
suffering from ourselves and from each other. Interestingly, when we meet all parts of
ourselves with gentleness we invite everyone’s pain into the room to be transformed. Marianne
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Williamson in her book, A Return to Love, speaks to this beautifully, “And as we let our own
light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are
liberated from our own fear our presence automatically liberates others” (Williamson, 1992).
Self- compassion serves as an invitation that grows authentic, heart-centered community.
Mindfulness is an essential part of this type of community and happens to be the final
component of Neff’s model. With mindfulness, we come alongside what is, and allow what
shows up to be, without trying to hide or fix it. We simply allow, and in our allowing we create
space for all of us to exist. Rumi’s poem The Guest House speaks to this idea beautifully,
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an
unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its
furniture, still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice. Meet them at the door laughing and invite
them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
(Jalāl, -D. R., & Barks, C., 1997).
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This poem reminds us that there is no one part of ourselves that is any more welcome or
valuable than any other. Self-compassion reminds us to greet each other and ourselves with
unconditional love. In doing so, we quiet our threat - defense system and awaken our
caregiving system, growing feelings of safety, peace and love (Neff 2011).
Research suggests that self-compassion breeds resiliency, motivation and overall
feelings of wellbeing (Neff 2011). My own experience supports researchers findings. I also
found that the more I practiced being compassionate with myself, the more nourished I felt, and
the more able I was to take responsibility for what I needed and the way I met myself and the
world. The blame game lost its power, and true personal ownership became possible. I could
finally look in the mirror without shrinking back, because I accepted me, all of me or at least I
was on the path to doing just that. I had found the elixir that I needed to finally come home to
myself and with it I had found a path for serving my community.
When the HERO-QUEST has been accomplished, through penetration to the source, the
adventurer still must return with his life-transmuting trophy. The full round, the norm
of the monomyth, requires that that the hero shall now begin the labor of bringing the
runes of wisdom, the Golden Fleece, or his sleeping princess back into the kingdom of
humanity, where the boon may redound to the renewing of the community, the nation,
the planet, or the ten thousand worlds (Campbell, 2008, p. 167).
Diary Entry 5 – Homecoming
It’s September 2015, and just over a year since my life got turned inside out. I am
sitting in my living room in Whistler, receiving words, love and care from sixteen of the most
incredible women I have ever known. My father is also present. He wanted so badly to be a
part of my 40th birthday weekend that he somehow inserted himself amongst a room full of
49
women. We are sitting in a circle and I am presented with a box filled with gifts from the heart;
letters, poems, photos and quotes from those present and those too far away to come in person.
I am asked to read each letter, each poem and look through each album. As I completely take
in what is presented to me, I am humbled and overwhelmed. Tears roll down my face as I look
into the eyes of the people who have seen me through the dark woods and have welcomed me
home. I have been broken and bruised, my masks have been peeled away, and my world has
come completely apart. And yet, here I sit surrounded with love, healed and transformed.
Everything is the same but it all looks completely different. My purpose is clear. I’m here,
fully alive and awake connected and a part of a web that is so much bigger than me alone. My
village…
I smile to myself and to the universe as I look into my father’s eyes brimming with tears.
How beautiful and perfect, that the man I thought I needed so badly to love, me to affirm me,
and to make me feel worthy could bear witness to my own homecoming.
50
PART IV
PRACTICAL
APPLICATION
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Process is the Gift
I left my husband just over two years ago, and have been in the process of writing and
living this autoethnography for almost as long. This process has been a gift. It has given me the
ability to truly reflect on my experience and in so doing has awakened the witness in me. I
have been able to completely immerse myself in my journey and be an observer of it
simultaneously. I have been a student of my experience and at the same time I have become a
teacher through it. The process of writing has transformed me. I have broken open. What you
have read is the whole-hearted telling of who I am. According to Dr. Brene Brown (2010), this
“whole-hearted” telling is the original definition of the word courage when it first came to the
English language. As I said at the beginning, my story is both very ordinary and
extraordinary. It reflects my own unique experiences but connects me with all the other
“whole-hearted” heroes who have ever lived throughout time. These are people according to
Brown (2010) who have the courage to be imperfect, and to live with self-compassion. People
who are willing to let go of who they are supposed to be, to be who they are and connect
authentically from that place. These people are raw, real and vulnerable. These people are my
people. My journey has brought me back to my village and according to Campbell’s
monomyth, my responsibility at this stage of the journey, is to share my learning so as to renew,
reinvigorate and inspire my community (Campbell, 2008).
This is not the end of my story, but just a beginning. I have been playing with the
lessons I have learned, and transforming them into practices that I can share. I am a beginner,
and by no means do I have all the answers. My lived experiences have given me some insights,
and I know I was meant to live them, to breathe them and to share them as part of my story and
52
my offering. This journey of being human is a dance. In the dance there is no separation, no
polarity just flow and constant movement. In the dance, we move together, we respond to each
other and adjust to each other’s rhythm. The dance is ever-changing, there is nowhere to get to,
no perfect move, no arriving, and no ultimate knowing. When one of us shifts even slightly,
everything around us shifts as well. One perspective opens and the whole world reverberates.
Life is a beautiful dance and when we engage whole-heartedly and respond to it with flexibility
and fluidity our journey leads us home, even if the path is somewhat circuitous. This poem
illustrates this beautifully.
I asked for Strength...
And God gave me difficulties to make me strong.
I asked for Wisdom...
And God gave me problems to solve.
I asked for prosperity...
And God gave me a brain and brawn to work.
I asked for Courage...
And God gave me obstacles to overcome.
I asked for Love...
And God gave me troubled people to help.
I asked for Favors...
And God gave me opportunities.
I received nothing I wanted...
But I received everything I needed
(Author unknown, Gurmukh, 2000, p. xxxix)
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Some of the fruits of my journey as I understand them today include: the power of
presence, the power of the body and somatic practice to calm the mind and awaken the wisdom
inherent in all of us, and the importance of cultivating self-compassion. In the following pages I
explore how each of these learning are applied to my therapeutic practice.
The Power of Presence
As a therapist and a teacher, I feel a responsibility to show up completely and to tap into
my own raw beauty with love, compassion, vulnerability and courage. In doing so, my
presence can serve my clients and students as a gentle whisper, to step in to their own grace
with loving-kindness. My role is not to push, to coax or to grasp, but rather to create a space of
acceptance and belonging; a space that invites the whole person in front of me to emerge into
being. When they arrive in the room, I greet them with acknowledgement, attention, affection
and acceptance, my teacher Michael Talbot Kelly refers to this as the I See You Principle
(M.Talbot Kelly, personal communication, March 2015) I validate all of them, especially the
parts they have spent a lifetime hiding from. I listen deeply for the parts of them that have been
relegated to the shadows and offer my hand to dance them back into the light. When we show
up in our vulnerability, and are met with warmth and acceptance rather than judgment, there is
little room for shame. We all have wounds, we all have armor, and we are all hiding in some
way. I will often use self- disclosure here, and share the parts of me I spent a lifetime rejecting,
parts of me like needing. Brene Brown (2010) taught me that the words “me too” are the most
potent way to quiet shame and even the playing field in this journey of being human. We are
afraid that being seen means being rejected, after all that is what we did to ourselves at a very
young age. The truth however is that we are all dying to be seen, to be accepted and to be loved
for exactly who we are. I think back to myself as a little girl, screaming to my daddy “look at
54
me, look at me.” In the words of Irish philosopher George Berkley “esse est percepi,”
translated by James Hillman into, “to be seen is to become” (Hillman, 1997). What bigger gift
can we give to another human being than to invite them into their wholeness, to accept them
exactly as they are, and to reflect back to them their inherent beauty through eyes that really see
them? The child no longer has to reject herself to be loved, but rather, learns through another
that she is loveable exactly as she is. The trust that is required for, and forms through these
interactions is incredible. While it looks on the outside like a bond is developing between a
therapist and a client or a teacher and a student, the more essential bond is developing beneath
the surface; a reintegration with one’s authentic nature or true-self.
The Power of the Body
As people begin to explore their wounds, the emotions that surface can sometimes be
overwhelming. Making sense of these feelings through talk-therapy or with the mind alone can
be difficult. The body carries all of our unprocessed emotions in the form of tension and disease. Unlike the mind, the body isn’t full of story, just energy longing to be unleashed and
brought back into flow. For this reason, I find that mindfulness practices like conscious
breathing and body scanning, as well as somatic practices like Kundalini yoga, dancing and
shaking are effective techniques for freeing the body.
In both my own practice and in my work with clients and students I begin with a few
minutes of conscious breathing. I have found that doing so, brings a person into their body,
calms them and gives them access to the information the body is longing to communicate.
Eckhart Tolle (2005) says,
Being aware of your breath forces you into the present moment - the key to all inner
transformation. Whenever you are conscious of the breath, you are absolutely present.
55
You may also notice that you cannot think and be aware of your breathing. Conscious
breathing stops your mind (p. 244).
I will usually follow a breathing exercise by guiding clients or students through a body
scan. As I take them through various parts of the body I ask them to stop where they notice
discomfort and simply bring their awareness to that area. I encourage them to be with, and
allow what they are feeling rather than trying to hide or change it or fix it. I remind them that
their bodies are wise and are simply communicating what is working for them and what isn’t.
In one on one session I might ask the client to speak from the sensation, to describe it and to
bring it into the room. In this way, I work with clients to access the body’s wisdom, reminding
them that they are the experts of their own experience and that the answers lie inside. Sharon
Salzberg speaks to this experience so eloquently:
Because the development of inner calm & energy happens completely within & isn’t
dependent on another person or a particular situation, we begin to feel a resourcefulness
and independence that is quite beautiful—and a huge relief.
(Salzberg, 2010)
As a Kundalini yoga student I have had the privilege of feeling the power of my own
body. I have used my body to release and unleash emotional tension that has been held deep
within it and is no longer needed. Armor that once served a purpose to protect me has fallen
away as I have become more and more willing to be unmasked and vulnerable.
As a Kundalini yoga teacher I have been graced with the opportunity to witness some of
the most raw and beautiful moments in my life. I often invite students in class to shake, to
dance and to let go of everything that stands in the way of them being who they are. As the
music plays and the room begins to vibrate something magical happens. The deeper people
56
seem to go inside the more the room comes together. Tears well up, shouts form, sweat flies,
the floor shakes, and each unique and beautiful being begins or continues their process of
freeing themselves. There is nothing more humbling or beautiful than watching a young
woman let go of all social constraints as she shakes her body free, or bearing witness to an
elderly woman give herself permission to tap into her sensuality and move like a young maiden.
I often sit in the front of the room and cry as I watch the raw beauty of humanity awakening
before my eyes. This poem by Jewel Mathieson is the most raw and honest expression of the
power of movement that I have ever read and it is the gift that I bear witness to when I teach.
We have come to be danced
Not the pretty dance
Not the pretty, pretty, pick me, pick me dance
But the claw our way back into the belly
Of the sacred, sensual animal dance
The unhinged, unplugged, cat is out of its box dance
The holding the precious moment in the palms
Of our hands and feet dance.
We have come to be danced
Not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance
But the wring the sadness from our skin dance
The blow the chip off our shoulder dance.
The slap the apology from our posture dance.
We have come to be danced
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Not the monkey see, monkey do dance
One two dance like you
One two three, dance like me dance
but the grave robber, tomb stalker
Tearing scabs and scars open dance
The rub the rhythm raw against our soul dance.
We have come to be danced
Not the nice, invisible, self-conscious shuffle
But the matted hair flying, voodoo mama
Shaman shakin’ ancient bones dance
The strip us from our casings, return our wings
Sharpen our claws and tongues dance
The shed dead cells and slip into
The luminous skin of love dance.
We have come to be danced
Not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance
But the meeting of the trinity, the body breath and beat dance
The shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance
The mother may I?
Yes you may take 10 giant leaps dance
The olly olly oxen free free free dance
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The everyone can come to our heaven dance.
We have come to be danced
Where the kingdoms collide
In the cathedral of flesh
To burn back into the light
To unravel, to play, to fly, to pray
To root in skin sanctuary
We have come to be danced
We have come (Mathieson, J., from Awakening Women).
Self-Compassion
The power of presence and of somatic practices, serve to awaken us to our pain. The
masks come off, and our vulnerability is unveiled. We learn to sit with and breathe with what
is. We give room to it, allow it, lean into it and as we do we surrender and in so doing we let it
go. Emotions are never meant to take up residence in our bodies. Rather, they are meant to
flow through us, not define us. In this state of vulnerability, I have found that cultivating selfcompassion is essential for healing to take place. For us to be able to draw that which we have
relegated into the shadows back into the light we have to meet ourselves with intense
gentleness. We must play the role of the compassionate parent to ourselves in order to heal the
child inside. Imagine if every time we felt emotional or physical pain of any kind we put our
hands on our hearts and met ourselves with these words, “Oh sweetheart in this moment you are
suffering. You are not alone. I am right here, and so are all the other people who are struggling
59
too. Breathe, trust, surrender and remember to be kind to yourself in this moment.” These are
some of the pieces of that Neff addresses in her book The Model of Self-Compassion (2011).
These words have the power to transform our self-loathing into love. I have experienced it
personally and have watched countless clients and students melt into their own hands as they
receive themselves. This practice is so simple yet its impact is transformative. It has the power
to take us from a place of separateness and isolation, which if you remember is where we
started in Campbell’s journey, and return us home to our own divinity, to truth, to love.
Diary Entry 6 – Re-Incorporation – The Offering
“I am not a man, I am not a woman, I am not a person, I am not myself, I am a
teacher.” “I am not a man, I am not a woman, I am not a person, I am not myself, I am a
teacher.” “I am not a man, I am not a woman, I am not a person, I am not myself, I am a
teacher.” I hear myself repeating the teacher’s creed handed down to us by Yogi Bhajan
(Bhajan, 2007, p. 266), over and again, as I frantically try to find a way to ground myself. “It’s
not working, what I am I going to do? I have to teach a yoga class in thirty minutes and over
25 people are depending on me to show up, and I mean really show up. How am I supposed to
hold space with grace when I feel lost, helpless and frightened? What a sick joke this is. I can’t
do this. My world is crumbling, I need a teacher I hear myself scream, I need a container,
someone to hold me and make this all better. I have nothing to teach right now, nothing to
offer, I’m empty. God please help me. I’m a mother and I can’t even protect my own
child…how on earth am I supposed to give my students what they need? I pull into the studio
shaking, with swollen and red eyes, evidence of a sleepless, tear-filled night. I try to gather
myself but I am not able to.
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The room is full, it’s time to begin. I see my reflection in the mirror and my pain is
crystal clear, no pretending this one away, especially not to this group. I take us through a
breathing exercise called Sitali pranayama. I do it for me, under the guise of a warm-up, to
reduce the level of panic in my body. The breath barely touches my emotional state. “I am not
a man, I am not a woman, I am not a person, I am not myself, I am a teacher.” I try the
teacher’s creed one more time, but nothing changes. I have been taught to keep me out of my
teachings, to be a vessel for divine wisdom, and to step out of the way. I take a deep breath,
and ask everyone to open their eyes. No hiding for me, not today. I’m afraid. They are all
about to see the most vulnerable me.
I sit in front of my students with tears streaming down my face. A voice from deep inside
me begins to speak. “I have been repeating the creed Yogi Bhajan gave to us as teacher’s to
root us and ground us in the wisdom of the golden chain. But as I hear myself repeating these
words, I am not a man, I am not a woman, I am not a person, I am not myself, I am a teacher,
all I can think to myself is what a bunch of bullshit. I am a woman, and last night I kicked my
partner out of our home because his presence was triggering major trauma for my oldest son. I
am a woman and my son’s mental health is decompensating. I had to call the police on my ten
year-old boy, because he became violent in response to his highly anxious state, and I needed
him to know that violence wasn’t the way. I am a woman, my heart is raw, and my whole life
feels like a hot mess in this moment. And while I know, deep in my soul, that all is exactly as it
is meant to be, I hurt, I’m afraid and I need support. I am a woman and today I think I am here
to tell you that its ok to be where you are, to feel what you feel and to honor whatever is true for
you in this moment. All of me is right here with you, and I invite all of you, your beauty, your
pain, your successes and your disappointments, into the room today. I know that if we can
61
come together and hold space for one another to be exactly who we are, and where we are in
this very moment then together we will create transform darkness into light.
My heart is racing, my voice sounds very familiar, but she is not all of me, because I am
present witnessing her. She’s brave and bold and totally and completely human. I am in awe
watching her, aware that so many masks, so many layers have been released for her to speak
the way she does. She has the courage to tell the story of her heart, to speak her truth. She is
vulnerable and sounds so incredibly compassionate with herself.
Wow, I think to myself you have really grown. The lessons you have been sharing all
these years with your clients and students along with the experiences you have weathered have
transformed you. You’ve been teaching what you have most needed to learn and life has finally
thrown you enough of a curve ball to crack you open to your own teachings. Now, my darling,
live these teachings, breathe them and surrender. Remember your promise to lovingly and
compassionately invite the darkness into the light. Radiate from your heart dear one and bring
love to this world. Jai Jagdeesh’s words play in the background, and even in the midst of chaos
I know everything is perfect exactly as it is.
Know you are loved
Rest in peace
Dream your sweet dreams
'Til your soul is released
Beloved Child
My heart is yours
Beloved Child
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Go out and open doors
With your love
With your faith
With your compassion
With your grace
Oh, with your grace
Beloved Child
You are the light of the world
Beloved Child
Go out, spread light to the world
Be strong, be kind, be brave
Know your mind
know that you're are divine
Know that it's alright to be afraid. (In Dreams, Jagdeesh, 2013, track 8)
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